HIST7459: Gender and History in Latin America since Independence

Gender – the socially constructed and
historically contingent representation of perceived biological differences –
has become a key concept in historical analysis, which has reshaped historical
understandings of the Latin American past and present. By highlighting the
social origins of naturalised concepts, such as sexuality, reproduction and the
family, and examining the historical ways in which they have been defined and
regulated, gender analysis provides a powerful tool with which to interpret
power, ideas, and material relationships more broadly.

This module aims both to examine the
history of gender and sexuality in Latin America since independence and to
analyse Latin American history through the lens of gender. It seeks to
highlight the connection - empirically, theoretically and epistemologically -
between gender, masculinity, femininity, sexuality and the family, and the
political, economic, social and cultural processes that have characterized
Latin America since independence. These include war, nation-building, state
formation, export development, liberal modernization, industrialization, the
growth of the national developmentalist state, revolution, authoritarianism and
democratization, among others.